Vance Havner Nuggets

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said, "'But we did not yield in subjection to them "'for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel "'would remain with you.'".

In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry.

Adam’s Fall, Federal Headship, and the Great Exchange

My name's Mike Abendroth. It's good to be back on the air with you today. As I look outside, it is a wonderful autumn day, raining, that is. It is orange, red, green, and bland. I guess the sky would be gray or bland or something like that, but the joy of the Lord is our strength here in New England.

Actually, lots of people call this season the fall, but every time I hear the word fall, I always think of not autumn, but I think of fall like Adam's fall. And I think that was from the New England primer, actually.

In Adam's fall, we send all. And so that's for the letter A. Boy, if our schools could only teach that today. In Adam's fall, we send all. Can you imagine the godness of God when it comes to Adam's sin as our federal head?

When Eve sinned, certainly that was a sin and it would be damaging to Eve, but when Adam sinned, Adam was the federal head. He was the first Adam. And when Adam sinned, he plunged the rest of humanity into sin.

And it was actually by a counting of sin, a reckoning, forensic declaration that God took Adam's sin and then credited that to our account, imputed it into our account. And so when I think of fall, I think of Adam's fall.

And then I also think of Christ Jesus's great work as the not second Adam, maybe there'd be a third and fourth, but the last Adam, as 1 Corinthians chapter 15 talks about it, the last Adam, Christ Jesus.

And even though we weren't in the garden and even though we didn't earn it and even though we didn't deserve it, we were granted by federal representation, by God's declaration, the sin of Adam. Adam's first transgression imputed to our account.

And the same thing when it comes to Calvary, even though we weren't there, even though we don't deserve it, even though we didn't earn it, God credits Christ's righteousness to our account and credits our sin to Christ's account.

That's a wonderful exchange and a great exchange. And so when I think of fall, that's exactly what I think of. I think of Adam and then I think of Christ and I think of the risen savior. And maybe you should too, the next time you think of fall, maybe these dying leaves that look pretty orange, yellow, red should remind you of salvation.

Donald Gray Barnhouse and the Art of Illustration

You know, Donald Gray Barnhouse, he did that very regularly. He'd pick anything he could in society, anything he could in the world to make an illustration. And he even put out a book called, Let Me Illustrate, to talk about, to show you whatever it was in the world, you could try to figure out how to then talk about Christ, his life, his death, God, the father, et cetera.

One man came into Donald Gray Barnhouse's office one time into a study and said, Donald Gray Barnhouse, I'd give anything if I could illustrate like you do. And so then he said to the young man, all right, then don't get up until you make an illustration, a biblical illustration, a gospel illustration out of everything that's on my desk.

And the man did. So that was a good way to go about it. Well, on No Compromise Radio Ministry today, I'd like to give a book out, an excellent book on Thomas Nelson by Thomas Nelson, and that is Glorifying God, a year-long collection of classic devotional writings by Thomas Watson, maybe my favorite Puritan, my favorite English Puritan.

And it says here, a man who inspired Charles Spurgeon and a nation compiled and adapted by Patty Hummel, H-U-M-M-E-L. So Thomas Nelson, it's beautifully bound. It looks older, and I have five of these to give away.

And if you'll email me at info at nocompromiseradio .com, I will be glad to send you one of these Glorifying God books free of charge just for being a regular listener. Actually, you know what I'll do?

Let me read January 1st and see how it sounds. So I didn't open this up randomly, but January 1st, Glorifying God by Thomas Watson, compiled and adapted by Patty Hummel. This would be a great gift, by the way, for the winter solstice.

Gift time. Winter warlock, and you would like to give something away. It's a Christian's duty to be settled in the doctrine of faith. The 1 Peter 5 .10 Apostles prayer says that the God of all grace will establish, strengthen, settle you.

That is, that settled Christians might not be meteors in the air, but fixed stars. The Apostle Jude speaks of wandering stars. Unsettled Christians are called wandering stars because as Aristotle says, that they do leap up and down and wander into several parts of the heaven and being but dry exhalations, not made of the pure celestial matter as the fixed stars are, they often fall to earth.

Those not settled in their Christian faith will at one time or other prove wandering stars. They will lose their former steadfastness and wander from one opinion to another. These wandering stars are like the unsettled tribe of Reuben, like a ship without ballast, overturned with every wind of doctrine.

These are not pillars in the temple of God, but read shaken every way. To be unsettled in one's Christian faith argues one of judgment. It also argues lightness. Just as feathers will blow easily everywhere, so will feathery Christians.

Therefore such are compared to children that we be no more children tossed to and fro Ephesians four. Children are fickle, sometimes of one mind, sometimes of another. Nothing pleases them long. So unsettled Christians are childish.

The truths they embrace at one time, they reject at another. So that's the first day. And the one thing you'll like about Thomas Watson is he is very illustrative. And so that was my lead from the illustration of the fall and the colors to the illustration of Donald Gray Barnhouse to the illustration of Thomas Watson.

Illustration, Preaching, and the Elephant Room Controversy

So today on No Compromise Radio, I guess it's illustration time. By the way, I'm just thinking about illustrations at the moment, and I'll just talk out loud since it actually is my show. I wonder when it comes to illustrations if your pastor over illustrates or under illustrates.

I wonder if he uses the Bible as an illustration. I wonder if he uses things that have happened to him in his life as illustrations. One of the things I want to do as a pastor is to illustrate, to shine light on a subject, to give a window to the house of the body of truth that the scriptures contain.

But maybe we over illustrate in general. I don't want to have my illustrations so wild and so wacky and so wonderful that people forget the scriptural truths. But that is sometimes the case. I may say something in passing and then someone comes up to me afterwards and asks me about that particular thing.

And I think, well, that was either misunderstood by the person or I over illustrated because the point is not the illustration. The point is what's behind the point I'm trying to illustrate. So on No Compromise Radio today, we will continue with the discussion of Vance Havner.

Well, this is just kind of flow of thought today. And you're saying, yeah, it sounds like it. Pretty much sounds like it, flow of thought. Well, if this was wretched radio, then we might change up things.

Or if it was wretched compromise, I'm going to try to propose to Todd, by the way, that we do a wretched compromise conference or we do a wretched radio, No Compromise Radio, some kind of, not a merger, because I would have to hostily take him over.

But it would be a wretched compromise and maybe what are wretched compromises. But that's in the works. I don't know if even Todd knows that's in the works, but that's in the works for Mike Ebendroth.

Well, I want to make sure you check out info at nocompromiseradio .com, or you can write me at that, or you go to the website, nocompromiseradio .com and you can pull up all our old shows. Matter of fact, speaking of shows, Carl Truman's show that I interviewed Carl Truman, Dr. Carl Truman from England at Westminster Seminary East in Philadelphia, that caused quite a controversy with some of the folks regarding Gospel Coalition, James McDonald, Elephant Room.

And so I thought that was just good to hear it from another perspective. My question regarding the whole Elephant Room issue, people can sit down and talk to whomever they'd like. I don't have any problem with that at all.

If it's going to be for pastoral ministry and understanding Christianity, then we ought not to invite unbelievers. That seems like such a no-brainer. The people in England or the people in South Africa are probably looking at that saying, why is there a controversy?

The only reason there's a controversy is because the Gospel Coalition folks, at least some of them, are circling the wagons. And why can't they just say, do you know we have a friend in the Gospel Coalition, James McDonald, and he invited T .D. Jakes.

He probably should have had Dever come back and tell T .D. Jakes, you know, here's a few thousand for an honorarium. Sorry, we can't do it. But instead he changes the purpose statement, that is, James McDonald does.

And then there's all this hubbub. We all, you know, make mistakes. My thing is, when you look at the Elephant Room website and you see who's running the whole thing, when it says Luke McDonald, I don't know, but my guess is that would be James' son.

If it's not his son, then I'd love to stand corrected. So I can even understand James McDonald trying to say, you know, we want to do this for my son's sake. But if it's going to be Christian ministry that we're going to talk about, we have to talk to other Christians.

T .D. Jakes is a prosperity teacher. T .D. Jakes is a modalist. T .D. Jakes is a Oneness Pentecostalist. T .D. Jakes is asked for what reason. I have plenty of my own guesses, but I don't really know.

Vance Havner on Preaching, the Old Adam, and Plain Speech

So you want to go to NoCompromiseRadio .com and you can pull up all kinds of old interviews. Vance Havner was an old preacher, an American preacher, and he had many good things to say. So the rest of the time on No Compromise Radio today, I think we'll just do a few Vance Havnerisms.

There's not a book that I would say you should probably go out and get, but he didn't write a lot of theological tomes. He just had a way with words and he, oh, let's see, A .W. Tozer once said that Havner was one of the few men he didn't have to clean up after when he preached at Moody Memorial Church in Chicago.

How about that? I think probably people would call him not an expository preacher. I mean, I like expositors, S. Lewis Johnson and John MacArthur, those kind of guys, James Boyce. Maybe you would call him an evangelist.

I don't know, you could probably say wrongly he was a revivalist, because that makes it sound like he causes revival. You don't do revival. God revives you according to his word, as the psalmist would say.

He was from the Appalachian Mountains and he preached and many things he said were insightful. And so if you think I only promote five-point Calvinist, that I only say we should study the reform doctrines, that nobody who is a four-point Calvinist is a believer.

Actually, you know what a one-point Calvinist is called? One-point Calvinist, they believe one-fifth, S. Lewis Johnson calls those whiskey Calvinists for the one-fifth, so how about that? Here's what Vance Havner said, because he liked Tozer.

You know, Tozer was not a card-carrying five-point Calvinist but Tozer was like a man of Issachar, discerning the times. And so Vance Havner, I don't think many people know about him and so it might prove you, put you in good stead if you look up Vance Havner and just study him a little bit.

Here is what Vance Havner said. What kind of preaching do we need today? We need the same kind we've always needed. Nothing important has changed. Just because we've split the atom and sent a man to the moon doesn't mean we need a new kind of Christianity.

We have a new kind of preacher in some quarters but we don't need him. Now that is very insightful quote, that's a great quote. When it comes to preaching today, we need the same kind of preaching we've always needed.

And of course there's progressive revelation but the kind of preaching that was faithful, God-honoring, God as the ultimate audience, God-glorifying. Whether it's John the Baptist or Elijah or Moses for that matter, we need that kind of preaching.

We don't need new kinds of preaching. So once I hear new in preaching, it's a new style. I don't know, I've read 50, 60, 70 books on preaching and the new ones come out. And if there's a new fangled way of doing something new and novel always sells.

But it's back to tell me the old, old story of Jesus and his love. The old way of proclamation, of heralding, of trumpeting the word. And so when you ask Vance Havner, what are you? He'd say, just a preacher.

That's a pretty amazing thing to think that that's the highest calling maybe in all the world, just a preacher. Well, here's what Vance Havner goes on to say. The apostles were witnesses of and to the resurrection.

Paul did not look much like a success in his last days although he did have stocks and bonds. But the stocks were on his feet and the bonds on his wrists. His only ambition was to know him, Christ, and the power of his resurrection, the fellowship of his suffering and conformity to his death.

When a preacher or anybody else has moved from me and mine to him and his, he is in the apostolic succession. So when preachers talk about me, then they're not apostolic. They're not following the apostles rather.

But we wanna talk about Jesus and him crucified. Here's what Vance Havner said. One of our problems today is that we're running an old Adam improvement society. An unsanctified flesh that has never died to sin and risen to walk in newness of life is running down church aisles to rededicate and God wouldn't use it if you rededicated it 1 ,000 times.

Very insightful Vance Havner quote. When it comes to preaching and evangelism, revivalism, et cetera, we don't need an old Adam improvement society. That old Adam was fallen. And as I said at the beginning of the show, we are all hanging on Adam's girdle to quote Thomas Goodwin, the Puritan.

Thankfully, because of what Christ has done in the Father's great love for us, the spiritual regeneration, now all Christians are hanging on to use Thomas Watson, Thomas Goodwin's language. We're hanging on Christ girdle and we're thankful for that.

And so we don't need an old Adam improvement society, which is matter of fact, the religion of everyone outside of Christ Jesus. Whatever religion it is, it's just to spruce up to comb the hair of old Adam that's a little messed up and it just doesn't work because the problem's internal.

Problem is we're dead spiritually. We're unable to help ourselves. So good job for Vance Havner. They tell us, Vance Havner said, now that Isaac Watts did not speak the idiom of today, Isaac Watts was a songwriter and a theologian, maybe some would call him, but he didn't speak the idiom of our day.

Will Havner said, neither did Shakespeare, but they're still studying him. It's an insult to the intelligence of young people to give them the impression you have to cheapen the gospel to make it understandable.

The medical schools do not simplify their phraseology to please this set. The legal profession hasn't changed its terminology. The medical, excuse me, the young people of this generation are perfectly capable of comprehending as the Holy Spirit reveals it in the truth of God.

Isn't that so true? When you're supposed to preach the word of 2 Timothy 4 .2 with instruction or with doctrine, why do then we desire for only monosyllabic words and things that are just watered down?

I say you just teach the Bible and then explain it. Of course, if you say justification and then you need to explain yourself because you think people in the congregation might not get it, great, atonement, redemption, satisfaction, propitiation.

Of course, let's try to explain these things, but we bring people up to the Bible standard. We don't take the Bible standards and then lower it. We don't do that with accounting. We don't do that with legal things, medical as Vance Havner said.

So let's not do that with the Bible. Here's what Vance Havner says on No Compromise Radio. We're talking about a man who has lots of good wisdom. And I think Tozer got his due. The church has recognized Tozer as a quote-unquote prophet, not technically defined as prophet, but prophetic in his words.

And Vance Havner, I think, was the same, not to the same degree, but I want you to be introduced to Vance Havner. All the church needs to do is to be the church. God never told the church to be an accompanist.

Accompanist, accompanist, that's what it says. He called the church to be a soloist. We have our own song to sing. We don't have to sing anybody else's songs. They say the ends justifies the means, but the means determines the end.

And if the means are unworthy, they spoil the end before you even get started. When Spurgeon was preaching, Barnum and Bailey offered him a fat price to come over here and preach, says Vance Havner. And I know what we'd say today.

We'd say, why don't you go? The devil's had the money long enough. Why don't you go over and preach? But not Mr. Spurgeon. He answered with Acts 13 .10. So Barnum and Bailey want him to preach. What would we say today?

Sure, Spurgeon's gonna be in the middle ring preaching just because he was such a great orator. Acts 13 .10. Oh, full of all subtlety and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord?

But then we don't have many Spurgeons, Havner said. We plunge fanatically in all directions trying to popularize the gospel. So today in No Compromise Radio Ministry, gems from Vance Havner. Here's what he said.

This is probably the funniest thing that he said. I use this all the time. The Ichabod Memorial Church decides to pack him in with folk music. By the way, Ichabod means the glory of God has departed. You don't really wanna call your kid that.

You don't wanna really call your church that. The Ichabod Memorial Church decides to pack them in with folk music. And then they say over at Ephesus, well, well, we'll try a TV personality. Then Pergamus says, well, we're gonna have a fellow who can play a fiddle and beat tap drums and blow harmonica all at the same time.

Then over at Sardis, they say, we're gonna pull out Aunt Dinah's quilting party. Come dress like they were a couple hundred years ago and we'll all see Nellie home. Then over at Laodicea, they have a talking horse.

I've heard of one of those horses some time ago. They ask how many commandments? He stomped 10 times. How many apostles? He stomped 12 times. Some nitwit in the crowd asked how many hypocrites there are in this church.

And then he went into a dance on all fours. That is classic Vance Havner. Joseph Parker said of Spurgeon, the only colors Mr. Spurgeon knew were black and white. In all things, he was definite. You were either in or out, up or down, alive or dead.

So Havner said, beloved, we're dealing in absolutes, the absolute authority of the scriptures, the absolute lordship of Jesus Christ, the absolute sovereignty of the Holy Spirit. It sounds too dogmatic to some people today because they blow from dogma to dogma.

They're living in a fog. Jesus Christ was and is absolute. He said, he that is not with me is against me and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad, Matthew 12. You'll observe there's no third class there and there's no such thing as an inactive church member.

If you're not gathering, if you're not drawing people to Christ, you're driving them away from Christ, you're scattering. Havner said, sin is dogmatic, death is dogmatic, hell is dogmatic. So when people tell you not to be so dogmatic, I think you ought to remember Vance Havner.

Sin is dogmatic, death is dogmatic, hell is dogmatic. I remember when the Titanic sank in 1912, it was a ship that was supposed to be unsinkable. The only thing it ever did was sink. When it took off from England, all kinds of passengers were abroad, on board rather.

Millionaires, celebrities, people of moderate means and poor folks down in the steerage. But a few hours later, when they put the list in the Cunard office in New York, it carried only two categories, lost and saved.

Tragedy had crossed out all other distinctions. Out of life's sea, there are scores of classifications. But when the voyage is over, it won't matter whether you are a rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief, butcher, baker, candlestick maker.

Whether you've lived in the backwoods or you're on the boulevard. Whether you drove a Cadillac or pushed an apple cart to town. All such distinctions disappear and only two lists remain, lost and saved.

We're dealing with absolutes. But whereas our preaching is authoritative and absolute, it ought to be affectionate, speaking the truth in love. So Vance Havner had it right. Jesus is dogmatic, heaven's dogmatic, hell's dogmatic, sin's dogmatic, death's dogmatic.

And you're in one of two categories, lost or saved. So bringing things full circle, thinking about the fall. I'm wondering because of Adam's sin and then that was the cause, but now you've also added more sin to sin by sinning yourself because you have a sin nature.

I'm wondering if you are truly born again. Are you born again if you're listening today and you're driving down the street? Jesus said you must be born again. You must be born again. And so you are either lost or saved.

And if you're saved, praise God because that was a gift granted to you freely, graciously, generously. God lavished his love upon you. And if you're not saved, that means you're lost, you're damned. And if you take your last breath today or get in a car accident, you're going straight to an eternal perdition.

So today, why don't you turn from your sins? Why don't you believe the gospel that Jesus Christ was real, virgin born, fully man, fully God, died a death that was a substitutionary death. He didn't earn that death, he didn't deserve it, but he paid for it anyway and was raised from the dead.

And you are to look to Christ Jesus with faith and you ought to believe that Jesus Christ is who he said he is and take God at his word. Repent and believe the gospel so that you might be saved.

Ministry Sign-Off and Station Disclaimer

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life transforming power of God's word through verse by verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at six. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.